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August 24, 2011

HP3000 Reunion sparks visa for emulator

Veterans of the 3000 community have become some of the hardest-working men and women in the show business. With the HP3000 Reunion starting less than a month from today, the three-day event that includes the CAMUS user group show has snagged a speaker from so far away that he needs a visa -- and will cross 11 time zones

We're not talking the Visa credit card company here, but travel documents to transport the 3000 lead developer Igor Abramov from the Moscow officlink service providers with application providers, so customers can have application deployment alternativese of Stromasys, where the Zelus HP 3000 emulator is being built. Abramov, who's fluent in English while he's been learning the deep language of MPE, will be speaking and taking questions during the Friday CAMUS meeting at the Computer History Museum at 4 PM on Sept 23.

An emulator is a vital part of keeping some HP 3000 ERP operations in production. The Support Group's president David Floyd has said that MANMAN -- which is at the heart of CAMUS member sites such as Ametek Power Instruments, Crane Electronics and century-old Fasco Motors -- can be supported through 2020. Ametek has a shutoff date of 2024 for its 3000.

An emulator like Zelus appears to have a secure place in the future of MANMAN. CAMUS director Terry Floyd says, "I think CAMUS will be happy to dedicate the entire Technical Presentation part of our meeting to Stromasys. [Abramov] can have over an hour, including the Q&A with [Stromasys CTO] Dr. Robert Boers."

This Technical Presentation will follow the Migration Day sessions being organized by Speedware at the History Museum. There's probably been other visas arranged for HP 3000 user group shows, but none have taken the foreground like the one being arranged by Stromasys product manager Bill Driest.

Our Moscow office is central to our advanced product development and is one of our larger and most established development labs. Igor has led the HP 3000 development effort over the past two years and no one is more knowledgeable than Igor on this subject. He is fluent in English and has presented at other technology conferences.

There's active interest in the homesteading community about the emulator. In addition to inquiries and reports from Cerro Wire & Cable's IT Project Manager Herb Statham, non-manufacturers are tracking Zelus. Just this week, software development manager Mark Beach of CompuPay was looking for an update. In 2005 CompuPay acquired PayMaxx, a payroll service supplier based in Tennessee. PayMaxx was one of the earliest adopters of the Channels on Tap initiative HP floated in 2000. The object was to link service providers with application providers, so customers could have application deployment alternatives. That sounds like SaaS of today, but so does time-sharing or Application Service Providers.

The emulator update at the Reunion will also include a WebEx discussion with Boers. Abramov will also be speaking on Saturday, Sept. 24 in a morning slot, before that evening's party gets underway. 3000 veterans will remember years ago when HP had to rent satellite time to do this kind of thing, and then broadcast it to their sales offices. Now it's just WiFi and WebEx and a projector, with Skype available as a backup (I've done a Q&A interview with Boers at his Geneva HQ, via Skype). We've still got VHS tapes archived to prove that HP TV did serve the 3000 community veterans who'll be attending the reunion. Even in this era of trans-global communications, however, there's still a special sizzle from a visa to enable what will probably be 16 hours of flight time for Igor.

Nobody's invoking the legendary name "Volokh" yet during these emulation plans. But even as Abramov is proving his mettle from Moscow, this won't be the first time that MPE was studied and probed by someone from the former USSR. The Ukrainian-style cooking of MPEX from Vladimir and Eugene certainly has supported and enhanced the 3000 well over the last 30 years. And as it turns out, Vladimir will be on hand at the Reunion, too.

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HP3000 Reunion sparks visa for emulator

Veterans of the 3000 community have become some of the hardest-working men and women in the show business. With the HP3000 Reunion starting less than a month from today, the three-day event that includes the CAMUS user group show has snagged a speaker from so far away that he needs a visa -- and will cross 11 time zones

We're not talking the Visa credit card company here, but travel documents to transport the 3000 lead developer Igor Abramov from the Moscow officlink service providers with application providers, so customers can have application deployment alternativese of Stromasys, where the Zelus HP 3000 emulator is being built. Abramov, who's fluent in English while he's been learning the deep language of MPE, will be speaking and taking questions during the Friday CAMUS meeting at the Computer History Museum at 4 PM on Sept 23.

An emulator is a vital part of keeping some HP 3000 ERP operations in production. The Support Group's president David Floyd has said that MANMAN -- which is at the heart of CAMUS member sites such as Ametek Power Instruments, Crane Electronics and century-old Fasco Motors -- can be supported through 2020. Ametek has a shutoff date of 2024 for its 3000.

An emulator like Zelus appears to have a secure place in the future of MANMAN. CAMUS director Terry Floyd says, "I think CAMUS will be happy to dedicate the entire Technical Presentation part of our meeting to Stromasys. [Abramov] can have over an hour, including the Q&A with [Stromasys CTO] Dr. Robert Boers."